Asia Media Festival is on

Singapore: The Asia Media Festival (AMF) 2003, an annual media industry fiesta hosted by the Media Development Authority (MDA) and organised by Reed Exhibitions, is set to scale new heights following the upbeat outlook of its inaugural event last year. The festival is being held in Singapore from 1 to 7 December 2003.

Some 2,000 trade participants from 35 countries took part in the AMF last year. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, the MDA and Reed Exhibitions are confident of staging a more exciting event this year. Numerous exciting programmes and fringe activities are being planned, both for the media industry and the public. A new target is set for participants for this year's event. An estimated 7,000 participants (4,000 from the trade and 3,000 from the public) are being projected.

This year, the meet will have more content and activities to the three media events of the AMF — the Asia Television Forum, Asia Film Market & Conference and Asia Animation — happening on 2 to 5 December at the Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort. New highlights include a policy forum, participation from the Tokyo Foundation, a new conference track on digital cinema and a bigger and better networking party.

The organiser has also brought in leading names of the television and film programming industry across the world including Alliance Atlantis Entertainment Group, Australia; Rozon/Just for Laughs, Canada; Betafilm gmbH, Germany; Star India Pvt Ltd, India; Granada International, UK; and Lakeshore International, USA.

The conferences feature dynamic names in the media industry exclusively invited to share their success stories and thoughts. Key topics include financing and funding, exploring new delivery streams through convergence, promises and pitfalls of digital cinema, the growth and evolution of Asian animation, the next wave - moving into new markets, and more.

Says MDA CEO Lim Hock Chuan: "The Asia Media Festival was a success last year. This year, we are determined to grow it further as a must-attend event for the media industry, where thousands of executives from the TV, film and animation industries gather to network, source for new media products and close deals. The MDA will continue to host the festival as it adds to the vibrancy of the media scene, moving Singapore another step closer towards our vision as a global media city. The event also provides an excellent platform for the local industry to reach out to the international market and vice verse."

"This is the critical platform for inroads into Asia. With the flourishing Asian market becoming increasingly important to many international sellers, there are compelling reasons for international programming buyers and sellers to congregate at this festival," says Ed Ng, president, Singapore, Reed Exhibitions. "This year, we want it bigger and better. The MDA and ourselves have taken the scale and expectations of the festival to a higher level, investing into it a considerable amount of planning."